Macau-wide casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in July is likely to be “north of MOP16 billion” (US$1.99 billion), says a Monday note from JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd.
“Based on our checks, GGR for the first 16 days of July is estimated at MOP8.25 billion or MOP515 million per day versus MOP500 million per day in the second quarter,” stated analysts DS Kim and Mufan Shi.
They added: “This implies last week’s GGR moderated to circa MOP493 million per day versus MOP530 million-plus in the previous week, which is understandable given Typhoon Talim”.
Macao was in a state of what the local government calls “immediate prevention” in civil-protection terms, between 5.30am and 8pm on Monday, as Typhoon Signal No. 8 was hoisted locally due to the passage of Typhoon Talim. That led to last-minute cancellations of transportation into and out of Macau: at least 84 flights were cancelled, according to government information.
Typhoon Talim was the first this year to result in a Typhoon No.8 Signal being issued in Macau. Typhoon season in Macau usually runs from May to October each year.
Looking ahead, JP Morgan said GGR for the week ending July 23 was “likely to be light” given the impact of the typhoon on visitor arrivals to Macau.
The brokerage added: “But we still see July printing the highest GGR since the pandemic, north of MOP16 billion or over MOP515 million per day”.
That would imply mass GGR “is comfortably running at 90-percent-plus of pre-Covid-19 levels,” its analysts said. “We continue to expect a 100-percent-plus recovery in mass by October,” they added.
The last time Macau recorded market-wide monthly GGR above MOP16 billion was in January 2020, when the city’s casinos generated almost MOP22.13 billion.
Macau recorded GGR of just under MOP15.21 billion in June, down 2.3 percent from MOP15.57 billion in May, according to data released earlier this month by the local regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
Macau’s second-quarter GGR stood at MOP45.49 billion, up 31.3 percent from MOP34.64 billion in the first three months of 2023. The latest quarterly result represented 62.0 percent of the MOP73.35 billion achieved in the comparable period of 2019, before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Macau’s casino GGR stood at MOP80.14 billion in the first half of 2023, an increase of 205.1 percent from a year earlier.
